


selenophile, thalassophile

by biscuitlevitation



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bittersweet, F/F, Feminist Themes, Fluff and Angst, Jealousy, Magical Realism, Sexism, Soul Bond, Spirits, Stillbirth, pakku gets rekt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:00:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24820453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biscuitlevitation/pseuds/biscuitlevitation
Summary: In which Katara is sea blessed, and Yue has a soulmate.
Relationships: Katara/Yue (Avatar)
Comments: 100
Kudos: 268





	selenophile, thalassophile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doctrpepper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctrpepper/gifts).
  * Inspired by [tell me something nice (like flowers and blue skies)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24674749) by [doctrpepper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctrpepper/pseuds/doctrpepper). 



> To my dearest friend in the whole wide world -- THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.

When Kanna’s granddaughter is born, she is still and quiet. She is the daughter of the chief, her son, who has earned his position through valor and cunning, not by arbitrary Northern bloodlines, but they still know they cannot heal her. They do not try.

(The last woman who might have been able to save her, a woman who Kanna loved dearly, is long dead, taken years before Hakoda was born.)

But Kanna was raised in the North, the only place on earth where the spirits linger in flesh and in blood.

She waits until everyone in the family igloo has fallen asleep, sitting vigil to ease the child’s way into the afterlife. She takes the limp, cold bundle from Kya’s arms, heart clenching at the dried tear tracks on her face that match her son’s. 

(Kya is the daughter she never had, strong and confident in the way Kanna had always longed to be at her age. Her collar, her reminder, sits at the hollow of Kya’s throat. It never fails to make Kanna smile to see her former shackles worn by a woman who turned them into a mark of pride, of love.)

“Gan-gan?” comes a soft, sweet voice, and Kanna turns to see her grandson, not yet two years old, rubbing at one large blue eye, wrapped in Hakoda’s embrace.

“Quiet, little one,” she says, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. “We’ll be back soon.”

Kanna steals from the camp with ease—if she can escape the Northern fortress, she can manage a few sentries and walls of snow. The cold sets into her old bones, and she hugs the bundle closer, as if to warm it.

Kanna had traveled across the world alone, but the journey to the ice’s edge with her stillborn grandchild is the longest she has ever undertaken.

She reaches the edge of the ice, and looks into the sea. The moon is full, shining benevolently down upon her, but the ocean is restless, ink black in the darkness.

A million half-remembered prayers stumble from her tongue as she kneels, legs stiff from age and the chill. She looks into the reflection of the moon on the water— 

—and casts the baby into it.

For a heartstopping moment, Kanna wonders if La can hear her from so far away, if he will heed her pleas when she abandoned her home so long ago— 

A piercing wail splits the night a moment later, garbled and distorted, as a gentle wave deposits the screaming child back into her grandmother’s arms. 

Kanna clutches her squirming, crying granddaughter, and weeps in heartfelt gratitude.

For the whole journey back, even though she’s soaked to the bone, the baby does not shiver even once. Her voice is so strong and true that she wakes half the village as Kanna proudly walks through it, bouncing her little miracle in her arms. She deposits her in Kya’s trembling hands, Hakoda bursting into tears of joy, Sokka grinning brightly at the piercing volume of his sister’s complaints, Bato and the other warriors clustered at the entrance of the igloo and howling to the moon like wolves in celebration of their chieftain’s youngest child.

Katara is named for the water droplets clinging to her wispy hair. Kanna thought it had been darkened by the water, but even after it dries it is pitch black.

-

Sokka’s little sister is strange.

Her hair is too dark, for one thing—it looks like ashes, so unlike Sokka’s own seal brown, though Gran-Gran says black hair is normal in the Earth Kingdom. (And the Fire Nation, though Sokka gets yelled at when he jokes about giving her to the enemy to annoy them all to death.

After what happens to their mother, years later, he never does it again.) 

Things melt and freeze around her when they should be doing the opposite, and when she throws tantrums the walls of their igloo crack. When Sokka told her she couldn’t play with his club, because only _boys_ could have weapons, she brought it down on top of them. They had to build a new one. Bato, who had been in there with them at the time, had not been amused.

Still, Sokka loves Katara, even if she is annoying. Dad says she’s their good luck charm, because whenever she comes out on the ships the water is calm and the fishing is good. She often has a parade of penguins and turtle seals following after her when she and Sokka go out to play, which means they can sled whenever they want, though she gets mad when Sokka tries to kill one of the seals to bring home for dinner. 

Once, when she and Sokka were playing out near the ice wastes, she slipped and fell through one of the fishing holes. Sokka shrieked her name, terrified, because Dad said he was supposed to protect her— 

But Katara burst back out on a gout of icy water, laughing gleefully without a care in the world. She rolled to her feet and shook her hair out, uncaring of her soaked furs, and made to jump back in before Sokka grabbed her hood and dragged her back to the village.

Their parents got worried and tense when Sokka told them about what she did. Only Gran-Gran looked entirely unsurprised, but she was a little nuts—she was always talking about spirits and blessings, after all. 

-

Kya does not always know what to make of her daughter.

The circumstances of her birth are a mystery even to her, and she’s the one who did the birthing. Kya had _known_ that the newborn she held was dead, that she hadn’t had the chance to draw breath before she died. And yet, here she is, a lively little girl who regularly survives not-so-accidental dips in the freezing ocean and rapid currents that would kill adults much larger and stronger than her.

They tell the story of Sokka’s birth often—how he was born already yelling, how when Hakoda held him for the first time he struck his face with tiny fists, and that’s how they knew he would grow up to be a warrior. When Katara asks about her own, Kya doesn’t know what to say, and her husband becomes too emotional to speak without his voice breaking. Kanna, her mother-in-law, simply holds her close and tells her that she was the ocean’s present to them. Kya is not nearly as spiritual as Kanna, but the look in Kanna’s eyes always stops her words in her throat.

Kya knows not to be too critical of her blessings, lest she lose them, and Katara’s miraculous revival is the one she values above all else. 

Katara, despite her age, has a curious otherworldly quality to her. She has an innate understanding of the tides and currents, better than the most seasoned sailors in the village. Sea animals are at her beck and call, and fish practically throw themselves into her canoe when she decides to go fishing with her parents. Most curiously, she has a whole-hearted devotion to the moon; she insists on all her parkas being embroidered with it, and knows instinctively what phase it’s in. 

Once, when her daughter is four, Kya wakes to see Katara’s bed vacant, and runs outside, heart in her throat, only to find her staring up into the night sky. 

“Katara, what are you _doing_?” she cries, scooping her up and holding her close.

“Needa find her, mommy,” Katara mumbles, rubbing at her deep blue eyes, which always seem to glow in the moonlight. “She’s pulling me to her. We’re not s’posed to be alone.”

“You’re never alone, little one,” Kya insists, but her daughter is already asleep.

Perhaps all Waterbenders are like this. It’s not as if there are any left alive in the South to ask.

-

When Katara sees her mother’s body, her screams rip the ice sheet the village is built upon in two.

-

When they find the orb of floating ice, Katara just has to touch it once to crack it wide open.

The tide whispers of protection and gifts and promises, and she knows the boy in the iceberg will save the world. The ocean has never lied to her before.

-

“Are you really just a person?” the Avatar asks her on an air bison’s back, after she nearly capsizes a Fire Nation ship in an attempt to rescue him.

“What else would I be?” she asks the god-child, ignoring how her brother goes still beside her. Her Waterbending confuses him, and Sokka never likes being confused, so Katara has given up on getting him to respect bending as an art form unless she’s scooping fish from the ocean by the dozens.

“You’re really powerful. It’s hard to do all that without a teacher. I can, but only sometimes, and I’m the avatar,” Aang says frankly, studying her with gentle but piercing gray eyes.

“I practice a lot,” she replies, ignoring Sokka’s mutter of _too much_ , and they drop the subject.

-

When the Unagi chases Aang, Katara whistles sharply and it turns away, arches its massive neck towards the shallows so that she can wade out to pet its snout. She coos at its sharp teeth and pretty green eyes, lets it wrap its feelers around her and take in her scent. Beneath their white makeup, the Kyoshi warriors go pale, and the head of the village is quick to offer them lodging. They all avoid her, after that, and she graciously allows Suki to teach her brother a lesson. He could use one, but if he won’t listen to her even when she’s pissed off and he’s surrounded by her element, he won’t learn if it comes from her. Besides, if Suki hurts him she can always flood her house.

When the Fire princeling docks his boat at Kyoshi Island, Katara throws it back out to sea, and drenches the burning buildings with waves until Suki tells her to stop before she causes a tsunami.

-

When they move inland, she struggles with Waterbending for the first time in her life. It makes her vulnerable. More importantly, it makes her angry. 

She can be dangerous when she’s angry.

Without the ocean, anger just makes her reckless.

She steals a scroll and has to _force_ this weaker water to obey her, where before it leaped to do her bidding. Aang doesn’t struggle at all, which rankles.

The Fire princeling has the instincts of a hunter. He catches her when she's weak and taunts her with her mother's necklace while his uncle watches, solemn and wary and curiously apologetic. Katara strains for control of the river, which just won't _listen_ , and vows to make him pay. She feels afraid for the first time, not to mention humiliated that she must be rescued.

She also has to learn how to swim from Sokka, which she knows he’s going to hold over her head for the rest of her life.

-

As tiring as flying over the open ocean is for Sokka and Aang, especially for two full days, she is back in her element. She crafts a raft of ice whenever Appa wants to rest and propels them just as fast over the water as in the air, which makes Aang laugh and Sokka seasick, and delights in the return of her power. She has come to appreciate the rewards of hard work, of seeing herself progress and knowing that she has earned it, but she has missed the ocean. It greets her with open arms, like a parent greets their child, and it feels like coming home no matter where in the world she is. 

Someone has the _audacity_ to attack her family with spikes of ice, knocking Appa into the ocean and freezing him there, and she does to them what she does to the Fire Nation boats foolish enough to pursue them by sea instead of river. Sokka’s yells stop her from drowning their attackers, and she realizes that they’ve found the Northern Water Tribe.

The Northerners watch her warily as she propels her massive raft, much larger and heavier than their boats filled with benders, and doesn’t struggle at all to keep up. She hears them whispering about her hair and her _attitude_ and how primitive her bending is, whatever that means, and growls under her breath. The only thing that keeps her from speaking her mind is how desperately Aang needs a master. 

She doesn’t have any training because the North _abandoned_ the South, not because she is lacking. She may not be as graceful as them, but she’s a lot more efficient; why wave both her arms around for something she can do one handed? She refuses to be ashamed.

She wants to laugh at how many Waterbenders open the walls, when they can all easily do it alone. They must be trying to intimidate them with sheer numbers, though if this is the best display they can come up with their masters must not be very creative.

And then they pass a slender white boat, carrying the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen, and the breath gets punched out of her chest. The girl is looking back, wide-eyed, and she stops both her raft and the boat and jumps over without a second thought.

“Katara, what are you doing,” Sokka hisses, fruitlessly snatching at her, but she ignores him. Sokka already has Suki, and she won’t move until she speaks to this girl. She has to. This is who she has been looking for her entire life.

The man propelling the boat settles into a bending stance, and she prepares to fling him into the canal if necessary, but the girl raises a hand and he reluctantly steps down.

“I am Yue,” the girl says softly, eyes wide and wondering, and the ever-present tug in her heart finally subsides.

“My name is Katara,” she says, kneeling so that they can look into each other’s eyes, pale ice meeting deep ocean, “and I will never leave you again.”

-

Yue has never been so happy before.

The emptiness in her soul, which she had felt since before she can remember, was aching sharply. She knew that outsiders had arrived, that she should stay in the palace where she is protected, but she abandoned her duties for the first time and took her smallest boat into the canal. She wished that she was a Waterbender, that she could make her escort speed up, because someone important was here and she needed to meet them.

Finally, she passes them, and she should be looking at the strange animal or his stranger bald rider but she only has eyes for the proud, beautiful girl looking back at her.

The girl stops both her raft and Yue’s boat with a mere wave of her hand, and her power makes Yue’s breath catch. She jumps the gap effortlessly, long black braid like a ribbon of ink behind her, and Yue drinks her in, stopping her guard from attacking with an absent gesture.

She tells the girl her name, and drinks in the reply with the desperation of a woman dying of thirst. The girl’s eyes, a deep blue, seem to glow in her presence, and Yue cannot stop herself from taking off her glove and reaching out to caress Katara’s face.

Katara lets out a shuddery breath, eyes slipping closed in contentment, and basks under her touch. Yue knows, with a thrill of happiness, that Katara really will follow her anywhere. They never have to be alone ever again.

“Uh,” the young monk says at last, “who’re you?”

-

Chief Arnook is less than pleased to hear that some Southern interloper has attached herself to his daughter like a barnacle, but she is apparently the avatar’s companion so he grits his teeth and allows it for the evening. Everyone in the North is well aware of the South’s inferiority, but he would be hospitable; they had once been sister tribes, even if the South is weak and has fallen into ruin.

The welcoming feast serves a dual purpose; to impress the North’s superiority upon the avatar, should he desire travelling companions of a higher caliber, and to put the Southerners in their place. Arnook might be more sympathetic and accommodating of their backwards manners if the girl wasn’t in the process of ruining his daughter’s sixteenth birthday and the announcement of her eligibility to marry.

“You don’t need to get married, if you don’t want to,” the black-haired brat whispers, still holding his daughter’s hand, and Arnook grits his teeth when Yue merely giggles in response. The princess is already engaged, and she would do well to remember it. They don't need any barbaric Southern notions jeopardizing the future of the tribe. The girl is certainly pretty, and will be striking when she grows up, even with that hair indicating a shamefully mixed heritage, but he can still hardly believe that someone has already proposed to her. At least the Southern tribe has some civilized traditions left.

Thankfully, the avatar and the Southern boy (her fiance? Relative?) are much quieter, to the point that it verges on sullen. He appreciates the boy’s efforts to detach the girl from his daughter, even if Yue just pulls her closer when he tries.

He perks up when Master Pakku and his students begin their demonstration. It will only further demonstrate the Northern tribe’s might; the avatar might have been hiding near the South Pole, for whatever reason, but his search for a master brought him here. How shameful, that the South could not even preserve their bending traditions.

He frowns when he notices the lackluster response of his guests. The avatar is frowning, clearly bored; the girl snorts, as if the display is something to be mocked; even the boy, who Arnook had pegged as sensible, is more focused on his food. 

“Avatar Aang, would you like to meet Master Pakku?” he asks, once the display is concluded. 

“That’s it?” the avatar responds. “Do you have any better masters? Katara can already do all that, and she’s never even been trained.”

Arnook blinks, eyebrows shooting up his forehead. The girl must have delusions of grandeur if she’s lying to the avatar about her capabilities; no woman can bend like that, _especially_ one so young. Yugoda is their wisest and most experienced healer, but even she knows her place.

“Did they have fresh water brought in or something?” the girl asks dubiously, finally looking away from his daughter. “Maybe that’s why they’re struggling to do that much with three people.”

Struggling? Arnook is not a bender, but even he can tell what they just witnessed took a considerable amount of power and skill. The girl is a fool as well as a braggart and a liar.

Yue casts a nervous glance at him, for the first time that evening, then says, “Would you like to dance with me, Katara?”

“Katara doesn’t like dancing, but I would love—” the boy begins.

“Of course, Yue,” the girl says, grinning brilliantly at her, and follows his daughter down near the drums like a faithful dog. The avatar sighs longingly, and the boy slumps down with a scowl.

Arnook frowns. Yue must normally be cajoled into dancing with various suitors; even Hahn, her fiance, can rarely ever convince her.

Then they begin, white and black, circling each other gracefully and effortlessly, as if they always had and always will. Arnook cannot tear his eyes away. He is not alone; chatter in the massive feasting hall falls lower and lower as more people begin to watch them. Even the other dancers stop, backing out of their way, afraid to interrupt.

The pair of them are beautiful, a work of art, a force of nature. Yue seems to glow with happiness, and Katara reflects it back to her, the pair wearing matching beaming smiles. His daughter is sweet and light, her partner dark and powerful; they have eyes for no one but each other, devotion in every movement and line of their bodies. Their dance is familiar, as if they have performed the steps a thousand times and more, but there is no way they could have rehearsed it before.

Even the drums die down eventually, the musicians as ensnared as the crowd, and the young women move closer and closer as they slow; by the time they stop, they are pressed together, laughing and embracing like they’re the only two in the room.

The room bursts into cheers and applause; Arnook catches himself smiling. He cannot quite remember why he was so bothered by their closeness, and he thinks, in the back of his mind, that it would be a sin to separate them. 

-

That night, Katara follows Yue into her rooms without a second thought, waving off the avatar when he asks if she will sleep in the guest house with him and her brother. Yue feels a thrill rush through her at that—she and Katara belong together, to the point that Katara would deny the avatar himself without a second thought. Her father raises an eyebrow, but does not object—he’s warmed to Katara considerably since the banquet, though Yue doesn’t know why. She is glad that Katara is not a man, or they would have been separated for sure. She hates that her body is a commodity to be traded to secure her bloodline’s continued rule, with a ferocity that she hasn’t felt since childhood. Would her fiance allow Katara to stay with her? Worse, would he take advantage somehow?

Yue has never felt inclined to kill anyone, but she would let Katara do it in a heartbeat if she so desired. She holds no grudge against Hahn, but if he tries to stick his nose where it does not belong, that will change.

They dress for bed, their hearts beating faster and their cheeks flushing even though they do not look at each other. Yue lies back on her bed, piled with furs as pure white as her hair, and opens her arms. Katara slips into them without a second’s hesitation, as though they have done it in a thousand prior lifetimes. Perhaps they have. Yue holds her tight, and finally feels that she is home. She strokes her hands through Katara’s silky hair, loose from her braid in soft waves. Glowing white mingles with shining black on their shared pillow. Katara looks up, soft and longing, and Yue pulls her closer to press a gentle, chaste kiss to her lips.

Her chest expands with joy and love so quickly it feels like an explosion. She has been looking down from above for so long, always circling but never touching. Katara gasps, embracing her, submerging her, and Yue feels as though she is floating, surrounded and protected and cherished. Her hand goes to the back of Katara’s neck to coax her impossibly closer— 

And her heart turns to ice when she feels the necklace around it.

Yue pulls back abruptly, chest clenching at the mingled happiness and confusion on the other girl’s beautiful face. Her gaze drops to the necklace—the _collar_ so like her own. How could she not have noticed? Had she really been so distracted? “We shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?” Katara asks, propping herself up on one elbow. “I think we should do it again.”

“You’re _engaged_ ,” Yue says, voice breaking, “and so am I.”

“En _gaged_?” Katara asks, flabbergasted. “I’m not engaged! I’d only ever want to marry you, anyway!”

Yue’s face grows hot at her words, wanting to laugh with joy and cry simultaneously. Katara is flushed and trembling with embarrassment, but her dark blue eyes are nothing but earnest. “But—you’re wearing a necklace—”

“It’s an heirloom,” Katara blurts. “From my mother.” Her eyes drop and her face hardens. “But I’m guessing that’s not what yours is.”

“It’s an engagement necklace,” Yue says. “Now that I’m sixteen, I’ll have to marry him. I can’t be with you.”

“I’ll follow you anywhere, marriage or no marriage,” Katara says, and Yue feels the truth of it deep in her bones. She wipes fruitlessly at her tears, Katara’s falling to further wet her face. They smell like the ocean.

Later, when they are about to fall asleep, Katara whispers, “Do you want to marry him?”

“No,” Yue replies. It’s the first time she’s ever said it, even to herself. She has been raised for this purpose, is the perfect princess through and through, but ever since Katara’s arrival she feels like so much more than that.

“Then you won’t have to,” Katara swears, strong as the sea in storm, and Yue cannot help but believe her.

-

Despite how underwhelmed he is by Master Pakku, Aang knows he should learn from a master, at least for using freshwater. He’s seen how much Katara struggles with it, so it must be really hard.

Besides, this way he can hang out with her without Princess Yue tagging along.

Katara stayed in the princess’s rooms last night, forgoing the opulent guest house they still have from the last time an avatar visited the North Pole. When she arrives at the crack of dawn, her eyes are bloodshot and tired.

“What’s the matter, Katara?” Sokka snorts, with a matching frown. “Did the princess finally kick you out?”

It takes some quick and clever Airbending to keep her from pushing him into the canal.

Her mood has not improved by the time they meet Master Pakku, and his attitude certainly doesn’t help matters. Aang never knows how to handle her when she gets like this; he’s half convinced that Katara might actually kill the old man.

Pakku makes a snide comment about learning to heal with the other women, and Katara snaps.

“Fine,” she snarls. “I wouldn’t learn anything from a _weakling_ like you. You probably couldn’t learn to heal to save your life, anyway!”

“Yeah!” Aang says stoutly, sticking out his tongue at an enraged Pakku. “I’m gonna learn to heal, too!” He hurries to catch up to her, and falls in stride at her side.

She glances over, and gives him a friendly nudge. “Thanks for having my back, Aang. You’re a good friend.”

Aang beams, heart fluttering. He feels like he could float into the air; he just might, if he’s not careful. “Of course! You’re probably a way better teacher than him, anyway.”

It turns out that Katara is not, in fact, a better teacher.

Aang loves learning healing, even if the classes bore Katara to death. She stays behind to talk to Yugoda about something, and when she emerges from the healing hut, her expression is thoughtful and melancholy.

“C’mon, now you can teach me Waterbending!” he chirps. Waterbending always seems to make her smile. They find a deserted spot near the canal and get started.

It soon becomes apparent that this won’t work. In freshwater, they’re on an equal playing field, but here her bending is so innate to her that she doesn’t seem to even know how she’s doing the things she does. Aang has to make big exaggerated gestures to move the same amount of water she does with a pinky. When he asks her to explain how she does things, she gets confused, as if he’s asking her how she breathes or swallows. She’s patient, and Aang is an eager pupil, but they both end up wet, frustrated, and with nothing to show for it. Aang is lucky that he can use Airbending to keep warm, but he has no idea why Katara’s not shivering.

They meet back up with a grumpy Sokka for dinner, and when he asks how Waterbending training is going, they let out twin groans. Aang starts spilling his guts while Katara glares into her five-flavor soup.

“Seems like you’re just as much of a weirdo here as you are back home, Katara,” Sokka teases, and dodges the poke she aims at his ribs. “You’re just gonna have to suck it up and ask him to teach you. You’ll probably have to grovel; all the Northerners are stuck up and think they’re better than us. Everyone at warrior training kept calling me a Southern bumpkin.”

“Fine,” Katara mutters, “but only for Aang.”

She sleeps in the guest house with them that night. Aang can’t stop smiling.

-

Katara walks into the throne room with the intention of biting her tongue and playing nice, but then she sees Yue and all her hurt and anger comes roaring to the forefront. She will not be cowed in front of the princess; she needs to prove herself as a warrior, as a woman, as a partner.

Pakku looks a little less smug about fighting her when the entire palace trembles around them. Yue’s delicate, beautiful hands are covering her (soft, sweet) lips, but Katara can tell she is smiling. The knowledge makes her blood roar in her ears. Katara would do a lot to see that smile.

The fight takes longer than she thought, because she’s trying not to destroy the city the way she did her old village, but from the start Pakku is on the defensive, frowning thunderously and trying (and failing) not to look humiliated that an upstart girl is giving him so much trouble. He figures out early on that she has trouble with mist and steam (not of the ocean, not _hers_ ) and uses that for sneak attacks. It still ends with him frozen up to the neck with icicles hanging from his dumb mustache, breathing hard. It was funny to see him flail around so much when she barely had to shift her stance to beat him.

“You’re lucky you’re apparently a good teacher,” Katara says. “Train Aang, and I might forgive you.” She bends down to pick up her necklace, dislodged by an icicle during the fight, and his expression goes from enraged and humiliated to slack with shock.

Katara learns some more things about Gran-Gran and her _awful_ taste in partners. (She probably wouldn’t have left if she was engaged to _Yugoda_ , who seems lovely.) “No wonder she ran away,” she snorts, and that’s the last time Pakku looks her in the eyes.

She marches through a crowd of Pakku’s students, who part like the sea does when she’s in a mood. Aang is whooping with glee, Sokka is cackling proudly, and Yue’s eyes, when she looks into them, are shining with pride.

Chief Arnook comes down the stairs to meet her, strangely deferential, and says, “There’s something I think you should see.”

-

Yue has never felt more right than when she and Katara enter the Spirit Oasis together. Her father starts to explain the story of Tui and La, but trails off when it becomes apparent than neither of them are listening. They settle on grassy green banks, and the koi fish leap into the air, just once, to greet them.

-

When Zhao kills Tui, after Katara has been lured away by Aang’s kidnapping, there is no merciful avatar to temper La’s rage. Katara steps into the spirit oasis, holds her second father close to her chest, and her eyes turn entirely blue, glowing like Aang’s do in the avatar state.

She rips through the Fire Nation soldiers in minutes, destroys their fleet in less, hunts the admiral down and drowns him in front of a horrified princeling. The invasion is over almost as soon as it began, tribesmen bowing at her feet, but the moon is still dead. La’s grief is an ocean inside of her.

She returns to the oasis, places him beside the still corpse of his lover floating in the pool, and sits beside a dry-eyed Yue. Her own are overflowing, warm tears spilling into the water.

“You know what I have to do,” Yue says softly, sweetly. “I’m so sorry. I have to leave you.”

“Don’t apologize,” Katara mumbles, voice breaking. “Or I won’t be strong enough to let you go.”

Yue kisses her deeply, tenderly, and it aches in the same place she felt La’s grief. “I’ve loved you in so many lifetimes, Katara. I wish I could have loved you in this one.”

She kisses away a tear, and steps into the pool, Katara at her side. La swims in circles around them, grateful and proud and sorrowful in equal measure. Katara holds her princess as her life force returns to Tui’s earthly body, biting back a sob. She will be strong for this; she is yin, and she is about to lose her yang.

The moon returns to the sky, and Yue’s body vanishes, but— 

There she is.

“I was wrong,” Yue—the moon spirit—whispers, joy in her eyes and her smile. “I’ll _always_ be with you, Katara. We can’t exist apart.”

“I know that now,” Katara says, chest full of relief and grief and bittersweet happiness, standing in the center of Tui and La’s renewed dance. The circle is larger, now, to make room for their daughters. “Wait for me?”

“Always,” Yue says, and vanishes, but Katara can still feel her presence. 

\- 

Chief Arnook entreats her to stay, says that she will have a place of honor as Yue’s priestess, but Katara refuses. She and Yue are equals, and Yue would not want her to be frozen there as she once was.

Instead, when Aang asks her to accompany him on his journey once more, she goes. She has a life to live, and she and Yue will reunite once she is finished with it.

**Author's Note:**

> Katara still has a rough time of it with freshwater, and I imagine that makes beating Hama a bitch and a half, but she learns. She's more raw power than skill, but our girl is a prodigy so we have faith in her. Also the Fire Nation is an island with a primarily naval military so tough luck fighting the literal ocean, fuckos
> 
> Sorry for all the melodrama and the bury your gays BUT yue didn't actually die in the strictest sense and she and katara will be awesome spirit ladies together in a few decades anyway. she even practices by pretending to be the painted lady! 
> 
> korra is like "hey i met a hot spirit lady who says she's ur wife?" and katara just smirks and asami's like "wow no wonder she's your role model" and korra is like "yeah that's how i landed a cutie like you, after all." wlw supremacy, gals
> 
> Also we got some prejudice going on in the North because according to the comics and LOK they're imperialist fucks to the south ON TOP of being sexist fuck those guys
> 
> lastly: im less bien


End file.
